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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Pierce County led the state in the rate of foreclosures in December and in all of 2008, according to new data from RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm based in Irvine, Calif.
The data show that foreclosures more than doubled in the county last year. In 2007, 3,088 properties were listed with foreclosure filings. That number was 6,669 in 2008.
Nationally, more than 860,000 properties were repossessed by lenders, more than double the 2007 level, according to RealtyTrac, which compiled the figures.
In December alone, 676 properties were somewhere in the foreclosure process in Pierce County. Thurston and Clark counties were Nos. 2 and 3 in the state for highest rate of foreclosures.
Moody’s Economy.com, a research firm, predicts the number of homes lost to foreclosure nationally is likely to rise by another 18 percent this year before tapering off slightly through 2011.
Still, foreclosures keep breaking records going back 30 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
“Hitting bottom is a lot different than coming off the bottom,” said Christopher Thornberg, a principal with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Democrats and President-elect Barack Obama are working on plans to use up to $100 billion of the remaining $350 billion in financial bailout money in an attempt to prevent the foreclosure crisis from getting even worse.
The four states with the highest foreclosure rates last year were Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California.
More than 1.1 million properties in those four states received a foreclosure notice, The AP reported using RealtyTrac data, almost half the national total. And more than one in five of those households were in California, which is coping with massive job losses in the housing and mortgage industries as well as a rapid decline in home prices.
You won the suit. You are entitled to some free stuff. Free department-store cosmetics.
Starting next Tuesday (Jan. 20) at Nordstrom and Macy’s, as well at as several other retail stores – Bloomingdale’s, Dillards, Gottschalks, Saks, Neiman Marcus and others – customers will be given free cosmetics from a pool of $175-million worth of eau de parfum, eau de toilette, gels, moisturizers and other such products.
Seems there was a problem several years ago with price fixing. A class action suit (Azizian, et al. v. Federated Department Stores, Inc., et al) was filed. The class won, and you are a member of that class if you purchased certain cosmetics (listed in the suit) between May 29, 1994 and July 16, 2003.
Cosmetics will be given out as long as supplies last. All you need do is show up, attest that you are entitled, and you will get, for instance, some Boucheron Coco Mademoiselle body lotion, Clarins Energizing Morning Cream, Calvin Klein Euphoria Bath and Shower Crème, Vera Wang Princess Body Polish, Lancôme Cils Design Pro Mascara, Giorgio Armani ACM Shower or something of equal importance as listed in the suit.
To see the settlement, visit www.cosmeticssettlement.com. The settlement giveaway continues as long as supplies last.
There will be no rainchecks.
Whoops. Those economic chickens have come home to roost – and they are not staying at Washington hotels.
According to the latest figures from Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood, hotel occupancy in the state in November was down 12.3 percent from the same month in 2007.
Bellingham-area hotels and motels suffered the greatest dip, with the occupancy rate down 27.5 percent for the month. The Tri-Cities recorded the least decrease, down only 0.9 percent.
Statewide, only 57.7 percent of rooms were taken in November, down from 65.8 percent a year before. In Pierce County, 53.1 percent of rooms were occupied, down 8.3 percent from 2007.
The average daily room rate in Tacoma and Pierce County, $78.83, marked the state’s highest rate of increase, up 6.1 percent from the previous November. The statewide average rate, $122.16, was up 0.8 percent. Bellevue and East King County hotels saw the greatest price decline, Rood said in his monthly report, down 7.1 percent to $138.12.
